Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Mitt Romney sought to fend off an
added challenge in the race for the Republican presidential
nomination, opening a coordinated assault against Rick Santorum
to combat the potential for a drawn-out nomination contest.

Amid signs Santorum strength in tonight’s Minnesota
caucuses and a non-binding primary today in Missouri, Romney’s
campaign turned its attention from Newt Gingrich, long seen as
its toughest rival, and set its sights on the former
Pennsylvania senator who won the Iowa caucuses.

Santorum took the lead in Missouri, getting 53 percent of
the vote with 30 percent of precincts reporting, according to
the Associated Press. Romney had 26 percent, followed by U.S.
Representative Ron Paul of Texas with 12 percent. Gingrich
wasn’t on the ballot.

In Minnesota, Santorum led with 43 percent of the vote with
7 percent of precincts reporting, according to the AP. Paul had
27 percent, followed by Romney with 18 percent and Gingrich with
12 percent.

Caucuses also are being conducted tonight in Colorado.

In an interview on a local Minnesota radio station
yesterday, Romney accused Santorum of increasing government
spending by allocating federal funds for local projects known as
earmarks.

“His approach was not effective,” Romney told WCCO radio
yesterday. “If we’re going to change Washington, we can’t just
keep on sending the same people there in different chairs.”

Health-Care Issue

Santorum struck back, saying Romney’s support for a state
health-care plan when he was governor of Massachusetts makes him
an unacceptable Republican standard bearer because of the
measure’s similarity to the federal health-care overhaul
President Barack Obama pushed through Congress.

“Governor Romney on that vitally important issue of
Obamacare is the weakest candidate we can put up,” Santorum
told reporters in Golden, Colorado. “The issue will be about
Mitt Romney’s credibility, not about Barack Obama’s record.”

The caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota and the so-called
beauty-contest primary in Missouri won’t directly allocate any
of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination.
The Minnesota and Colorado caucuses represent the first step
toward awarding convention delegates in those states, though
tonight’s results are non-binding on that process. In Missouri,
delegates will be allocated at caucuses later this year.

‘Reality Check’

Bracing for possible defeats, Romney’s campaign circulated
a “reality check” memo from his political director emphasizing
the lack of delegates at stake.

“We expect our opponents to notch a few wins,” Rich
Beeson wrote in the memo. Romney should do well, though in the
Feb. 28 primaries in Arizona and Michigan, Beeson said. “It is
difficult to see what Governor Romney’s opponents can do to
change the dynamics of the race in February.”

Still, a victory today would provide a boost for Santorum,
who has seen his support drop since defeating Romney by 34 votes
in the lead-off Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3. While Romney won the
contests since then in New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada, strong
support for Santorum could revive questions about Romney’s
backing among fiscal conservatives and evangelical voters
concerned about such social issues as abortion and gay marriage.

Anti-Abortion Record

Santorum, a Catholic with an anti-abortion record, wants to
capitalize on those concerns in Minnesota, where the power of
social and fiscal conservatives has grown within the Republican
Party. He has spent the bulk of his time over the past week in
the state.

In two days of campaigning in Colorado, Romney tried to
blunt Santorum’s efforts by injecting appeals to social
conservatives into his standard stump speech. He seized on a
decision by the Obama administration requiring religious-affiliated nonprofit groups to purchase health insurance that
covers contraception, a position at odds with the doctrine of
many Catholic hospitals and universities.

“Under this president’s administration there is an assault
on religion,” Romney told a crowd gathered in a warehouse in
Loveland today. “This kind of assault on religion will end if
I’m president of the United States.”

Yesterday, his campaign circulated a petition posted on its
website accusing the Obama administration of attacking religious
liberty.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Examiner, Romney
vowed to immediately overturn the “liberty- and conscience-stifling regulation” if elected.

White House Comment

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters today that
while Obama “is committed to making sure that all women have
access” to “important preventive services,” the
administration “will be working with those organizations and
individuals who have concerns about the implementation of this
rule.”

Romney won Minnesota in his failed bid for the 2008
Republican presidential nomination, yet aides say this year’s
dynamics are different. Four years ago, Romney ran as the fiscal
and social conservative alternative to Arizona Senator John
McCain, who won his party’s nomination. Today, he’s viewed as
the establishment pick, after gaining endorsements from party
leaders and elected officials.

Supporters played down expectations in the state yesterday,
where historically low voter turnout makes results hard to
predict.

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who quit his own
presidential bid and has endorsed Romney, wouldn’t forecast a
victory for him in the state, saying voters “gravitate toward
the most conservative candidate -- real or perceived.”

As Romney addressed voters in Colorado, his team deployed
Pawlenty to challenge Santorum’s credentials among fiscal
conservatives.

“Rick has been holding himself out as the perfect
conservative or the only real conservative in the race,”
Pawlenty said. “Well, if you look at his record, it’s not a
perfect conservative record by a long shot.”